Jordan Ogren

October 12, 2021

The holy grail of grammar...

Writing with flow is difficult. It’s like trying to dance with a fish. Or swim with a giraffe.

But there is a secret weapon you can use to create flow and stand out—a weapon few wield correctly.

The secret weapon? The PERIOD (I bet you didn’t see that coming).

How can a period create flow? Let’s first look at how it can ruin the flow.

When you fail to use periods frequently enough, you put an intensive cognitive load on your reader, making your content flow poorly, resulting in little takeaways for your reader.

Let me ask you: How hard was it to read that previous sentence?

I hope I depicted the dangers of using too many commas and not enough periods in that sentence. It’s disastrous.

When you use periods frequently but not too often, you create a natural flow. Almost as if someone is speaking; because that is how we talk.

But when you go overboard. With your periods. It becomes challenging to read. Almost. Impossible. To read. 🤦🏼‍♂️

LinkedIn is a cesspool of Type A personalities molesting this technique. For example, they stop sentences mid-sentence

Forcing you to read the following line to make any sense of their content. Or they end sentences without periods leading to the next line of copy (like I did above).

This is not good writing. It’s slimy, ignorant, and disrespectful writing. And it will eventually leave you looking like a 62-year-old grandpa in Supreme: a culture vulture and out of fashion.

What I mean is that misusing periods is “in.” I don’t knock the hustle of using what’s “hot” to improve your content. 

Just remember: What gets hot will get cold (what goes up will come down). Where will your writing be when the trend ceases?

Instead of hacking the period, how about respecting its vital role?

Respect it by:
  • Using it in place of commas when it creates flow
  • Not using. It. So much. That. It destroys. Flow.
  • Using it at the end of sentences and not falling for the LinkedIn Algo hack 

Don’t confuse slimy techniques with naturally good writing. When you choose to use the period appropriately and effectively, your writing will improve.

One last note: When editing, find commas that make reading difficult, and then swap them out with a period to improve flow and readability.

How can you improve your writing by using the period purposefully?

🧠 + ❤️ // JO­­­